A medicine counting device capable of counting a large number of medicines at a high speed is described in the Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2001-204795 (hereinafter Patent Document 1). This medicine counting device is provided with a rotor having a guide groove in the outer circumferential surface that allows a medicine of specific shape to pass through. A large quantity of medicines introduced from a hopper is supplied onto the rotating rotor, passes and drops through the guide groove of the outer circumference. Then, the medicine is detected by a detection means such as a light sensor, and counted.
However, there are multiple types of medicines such as tablets where a medicine is compressed or capsules where a medicine is contained inside a capsule, and the shape and size may vary even within the same kind of medicine. Thereupon, as for the medicine counting device of Patent Document 1, because the guide groove of the rotor allows only a certain type of medicine to pass through, there is a need to replace or adjust the rotor in order to count medicine of different shapes or sizes. Further, even if the vertical and horizontal dimensions are identical, if the dimension in the height direction is different, it is necessary to adjust the height of the rotor with respect to the partition plate.
Meanwhile, a parts feeder to continuously feed objects different from medicine such as screws is disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2003-118828 (hereinafter Patent Document 2). This parts feeder is provided with a saucer-shaped rotary container that is rotatable, and a spiral guide rail disposed non-rotatable on this rotary container. An object fed to the center of the rotary container will move radially outward along the guide rail by the rotation of the rotary container. Then, among the objects that have moved from the guide rail to the flange of the rotary container, only an object having a specified posture is allowed to pass by a regulating member, and an object having a different posture is returned to the upstream.
However, because such a parts feeder of Patent document 2 allows only objects of specified posture to pass through, the range of objects allowed to pass by the regulating member 104 is narrow. Accordingly, as shown in FIG. 15, when two objects 102 and 103 on a flange 101 are discharged in a state aligned in the radial direction of the rotary container, the object 102 on the outer side comes in contact with the regulating member 104. As a result, the object 102 on the outer side moves along the regulating member 104 towards the center of the rotary container, collides with the inner side object 103, and pushes the inner side object 103 to the center of the rotary container. During the collision, the moving directions of the outer and inner objects 102 and 103 change respectively thereby obstructing the movement of the object in the upstream of the rotating direction, leading to drawbacks such as blocking of the objects or an inability to dispense the objects faster. In case the dispensing speed of an object is increased by increasing the rotational speed of the rotary container, the impact of the collision will be large when the outer object 102 contacts the regulating member 104 or when the outer object 102 contacts the inner object 103. Therefore, in case of dispensing medicine at a high speed with the parts feeder of the Patent Document 2, there may be drawbacks such as occurrence of chipping of the medicine.
The objective of the present invention is to provide a medicine feeding device capable of feeding medicine one by one without causing cracking or chipping, and a medicine counting device capable of counting medicine without causing cracking or chipping.